Recently, a client was adamant an evergreen hedge at her potager be removed. Elsewhere, terra cotta pots were empty, awaiting funding. Of course I said, "Let's put the boxwood hedge in your empty pots."
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She loved it, has already done it, and told me I was, 'wonderful'. Amusing, but I know where 'wonderful' truly resides, boxwoods in pots.
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When an idea has worked fabulously for centuries in other gardens, it will work in yours.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic I shot in Susanne Hudson's garden earlier this year, bottom pic, Bunny Williams garden via Pinterest. Client dug up the large boxwoods herself & potted them, Tawaaaaaaanda ! Never tire of seeing Susanne's boxwoods in pots, nor seeing her in a state- of- zen watering them.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Before & during teen years, I copied everything Chris Evert. This dress, below, hangs in my guest closet. today. Amazingly, its metaphor, now, 180 to the winning reasons for saving it.

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Copy.

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It's that simple.

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Graduating college with engineering & horticulture I could not design a beautiful landscape to save my soul. Off to Europe, 2+ decades, studying the best historic beautiful landscapes the world has experienced.

# 1 Beautiful Landscape design idea, COPY. Copy the best landscapes. You will not recreate the wheel. Better, it's already created for you. Trust this concept.
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Why did I forget copying Chris Evert? Never a talented tennis player I retired a 2 time district 4-A singles champion amongst other titles won. Seriously, I was not a gifted tennis player.

Habitually Chic posted Ralph Lauren's new coffee shop recently, and it had me laughing at all he COPIED so well.
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Fern in a terra cotta pot, above, is the same concept I add to client's homes. Bring life to a room with something ALIVE. Look at all the best interior decorators of the past century. Plants brought inside, as if, just from the conservatory. COPY.
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Don't just copy, Copy the Best.
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Green-Brown-White is the best and most used beautiful landscape design color trinity of the past few centuries. Which green is for you? Personally, I'm using Ralph's coffee shop green.

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Harvest table with a pair of urns? This pic had me laughing AND dialing Susanne Hudson, the interior decorator on my team. She taught me this idea decades ago, and have copied the concept since.

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Huge secret about copying the best ideas and talents.

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When you copy the best, for yourself, it will be unique to YOU.

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Be brave, 'copy', is guaranteed to work for you.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Notice Chris Evert's lace panties & ribbon in her hair? Totally what I did too.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Still glowing & fragrant, Southern for sweaty-from-the-day, 48 hr whirlwind with Susanne Hudson in good gardens.

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Had to share at least 1 pic from our jaunts, below.

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Acreage, antebellum, private home of _____________.
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How have I not known/met this man, or heard his name?
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Unavailable, he gave us access to his gardens & barns.
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A garden design class is in this pic, above, but for now it is merely enough to know Furniture in the Garden.
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Pinterest, at present, is a joy to eye & intellect. Adore intuitive learning from good pics. Since childhood I've been attracted to British shows on PBS and furniture-in-the-garden. OF COURSE I titled one of my Pinterest boards, Furniture in the Garden. Click, here, to see it.
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Local interest, Martha Tate owner of HGTV's Gardener's Diary, and Liz Tedder, 19 times (so far) in Southern Living magazine were with Susanne/me. Met Martha in my early 20's professionally and sadly only recently met Liz Tedder, she came to the Conservatory Susanne & I built for a Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival display 3 years ago, which is now fronting editor's letter of Better Home's Gardens magazine this month. 1st time in Tedder's garden. How does that possibly happen, should have been 76th time. Best news? Liz is writing a book. And, I was demanding of what it should have. Don't you do that? Why not ask for what you want to see pics of and know about? This doesn't begin to cover spending the nite in Susanne's world famous garden, again. Luff, luff Susanne's mom. Asked her if I could call her, MiMi, today, she's 80's & I'm 50's. Hugs & kisses in both directions.
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Drawing a garden for a Federal style home tomorrow. Life is rushed, and good.
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Notice Tara Turf, above? How could I not adore this 'new' friend? Will post more pics, and his name/link once I meet him and get permission.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Better Homes & Gardens magazine recently put a Conservatory I built with Susanne Hudson for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in their magazine again. Haven't read it yet but am curious.

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My garden is 8500sf total, including house. This is for tiny gardens too.

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Conservatory in my garden, below, best investment in 'me' ever.

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Salient facts: 12' x 18' is the minimum size, doors must be on 2 walls minimum, electrical outlets on every wall, chandelier, ceiling fans, wood stove. Site parallel or perpendicular to your home.

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A 'moveable' structure meets most zoning laws allowing you to site properly.

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90% rescued materials, below. Most, a century old.

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A decade of search/rescue + filling the piggy bank to pay for labor/materials/electrical. Voila.

Choose a good carpenter, let their talent shine on your team.

Never tire of these French doors, they began life a century ago, 1 each side of a fireplace, in my grandmother's Federal style house.

Ground was not level. Stone steps were rescued, and gravel chosen for the floor. No worries getting finished interior grade level.

Conservatory, above, Susanne & I built, in the new BHG magazine. Styling, above, is ours, the magazine has theirs.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top 3 pics in my backyard. Wanted a larger Conservatory but space did not allow. Squeaked by with the minimum, 12' x 18'. The day my Conservatory was completed and the men helped bring in all the antiques from the garage, then left, I sat in the finished Conservatory for the 1st time alone, IT BEGAN. Life's tipping point. Who knew? Beware of getting what you ask for. It WILL change your life. What was seen thru a glass darkly will shine clear. In that moment you will let go of every thing holding you back. Fear that crippled will fall away as if you knew nothing of its existence.
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Lunch Ministry is often held in my Conservatory. Amazing the amount of laughter, and tears, this blessed Conservatory has already harbored with friends. Beloved, when he realizes I'm in the Conservatory, most often, will leave me alone until 'I' decide to come in. Grace pulsating.
.Minimalist? Mentored, as a little girl, by Miss Katherine Scott, "I can live without the necessities but must have the luxuries." From age 7, wisdom understood. An understanding never appreciated by my dad, a little more by Beloved. Kindred spirits totally 'get it'.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Your garden must tell me who you are before stepping inside your home.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken this month. Jeri Farmer's lovely home/garden was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour. Jeri & Susanne refreshed the garden this year and time/money were both running short yet pots were still needed for the ferns. Of course Susanne said, "Put them in galvanized buckets."

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Begun with rot, aka beloved use, these tools are prophets with honor in Susanne Hudson's garden.

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For centuries mankind honored the connection of tool to Earth as life sustainer.

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Betty Friedan wrote about the 1st generation of women disconnected from hand-to-tool-to-soil.

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Their children would not learn the names of farm tools, their use, how to raise livestock, plant crops, cook, care take others, much less know how to feed their own spirit. Bugs & weeds, instead of pollinators increasing crop yield, became poisoned inconveniences.

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Their children played in clouds of malathion as evening trucks fogged mosquitoes.

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(No time to rewrite, for this era, Friedan's work, back to tools.....)

No surprise Susanne & Jeri are on their way to pick up Hydrangea 'Ruby Slippers' Don Shadow Nursery is providing (gratis) the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.
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Take some of the links, above, about Don Shadow. He's a renaissance man of the Land, and far ahead of our era. Alternative livestock anyone? Has me wondering if he's friends with Wendell_Berry. And knowing it's time for a road trip, I've never been to Shadow's nursery.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from Don Shadow. Hydrangea pic mine. Heads-up my HF Chicks, we must do the Shadow roadtrip together (togetha). Yes, doing a little display for the PMHF again this year. Hope to see you there.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.